Living in a Blur: a Sokeefe University/Road Trip AU

Chapter 14

It had been a while since Keefe had been inside one of his family's jets. Usually he drove around his sort-of-old car, which was still sitting in a parking lot at the hotel. Clearly, his mother didn't care.

"You still haven't told me what you said to her," Keefe said, breaking the silence again.

"You seem to be under the impression I lied and manipulated her into giving you up," his mother said with a sigh. "You always want to make me the bad guy. What I said doesn't matter, Keefe, it's what she said to me."

Sophie wouldn't just give him up like that. Not right after she asked if she was his girlfriend, looking all cute and insecure and gorgeous. She wanted them to be together. She'd said love and war, right? Love. Maybe it was hasty of him to be dwelling so much on the word, but there was something so perfect about what they'd had, even developing in such little time, that he couldn't believe she would just turn on him like this.

He was so stupid for thinking he'd gotten to know her well in such little time. He'd clearly placed too much trust in her.

Or maybe not enough.

He would never know whether he'd said too much or too little. Not if his mother refused to tell him what she'd said that made Sophie take her money and give her the photo she'd been about to finally delete.

"Did you email the dean?"

"Oh, I'll make sure he gets his hands on that photo," she promised. "But not digitally. I wouldn't want your father finding out about this."

"Why?"

She scoffed. "What do you take me for? We both know how angry your father would be, and no matter how disappointed I am in you, I wouldn't wish that on you."

Now was a ridiculous time for her to try to start playing the "good" parent again. "Really? And why not? Why do you think you're so much better than him?"

His mother's wounded expression almost worked on him. He knew how good of an actress she was. "Keefe, honey, you grew up with us both. Are you telling me you didn't notice any of my effort? Would you rather your father knew?"

"He'll find out eventually when Judge Emery does."

"That doesn't have to happen. I'm sure I could do a little bit of talking with money." She shrugged innocently. "You drop out of Foxfire, nothing happens, no discipline."

"What? I can't just drop out." He needed his degree. He needed to go to law school, he needed his revenge on his father, he needed...

"Then you should have thought about that before you tried to cheat," she said firmly. "I don't want to hear another word about this. I'm doing you a favor, and the more you complain about it, the more likely I am to just let you deal with the worst consequences of your own actions."

—

Buying plane tickets at the airport was more expensive than booking online, but the amount of money Gisela sent her was truly insane. Now she just needed to find the next flight to Philadelphia.

It was hard to concentrate for a lot of reasons. Going to meet her mother was a terrifying ordeal. What if she hated her and never wanted to see her again and wished she left things alone? What if she was a bad person and that was why she gave Sophie up in the first place?

Did she want to meet Oralie?

Navigating the kiosk wasn't difficult, though booking a whole flight and printing a boarding pass were very different tasks. There was a flight to Philadelphia in only two hours. She could hang out at the airport, get food with Gisela's money, maybe scroll on her phone and try to forget all the ways Keefe had lied to her, manipulated her, made her like him...